Speed of gravity?!?

Question

If the sun were to explode right now and for some reason lose all of it's mass and gravitational pull, when would we at earth be set loose like an anceint slingshot (like a david and goliath slingshot)? Would the effect take time to be felt, like how it takes time for the light to reach us or would it be instant?

Answer 1

There was recently an experiment which aimed to measure the speed of gravity, and there has been some disagreement among scientists over the interpretation of the results.

In the theory of relativity, the speed of gravity should be equal to the speed of light, since the theoretical "particles" that carry gravity (sometimes called gravitons) are massless particles, just like photons (the particles that carry light). The light from the Sun takes 8 minutes to reach the Earth, so that if the Sun suddenly disappeared it would take 8 minutes before it got dark. Similarly the Earth would also feel the effects of the Sun's gravity for 8 minutes after it magically vanished.

In September 2002, two US scientists made some very accurate measurements of the position of a quasar as it passed behind Jupiter. They argued that the exact amount of apparent motion of the quasar (as the path of the radio waves from it was bent in Jupiter's gravitational field) depended on both the speed of light AND the speed of gravity. The measurements they took then proved that the speed of gravity is the same as that of light, ruling out some of the more bizarre modifications to the laws of gravity which have been proposed, and further backing General Relativity

Answer 2

If the sun exploded right now we would all be dead and Earth would be literally toasted. This is because when a star explodes, it first expands to about the size of Mars's orbit in the red giant phase of a stars life in an attempt to hold itself together. It would then eventually completely shed the outer layers into space leaving only the core which is a small, hot star known as a white dwarf which would eventually burn out and become a brown dwarf. Fortunately for you and I, this won't happen for another 5,000,000,000 years.

And as for the light question, it takes about 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach Earth but, the explosion would kill life as we know it in a couple of hours with expansion time and all.

I hope this answers your question.

and p.s.- Gravity has no speed. It is a force. Gravity on Earth can make things accelerate to a speed of 9.3 meters per second but, gravity itself cannot move.

Answer 3

Ok let me try this. Basicaly what you are asking is what if the sun where to disapear into nothingness instantly. Exploding would have a much different effect then just disapearing. Well first off the EM field made by the sun wouldnt collapse instantly it would actualy take some time for it to shrink back down into nothingness because it would act as an inductor that is to say the field colapsing on itself pushes on itself causeing some delay in its disapearence. As far as gravity goes the effects should be instantly felt causeing the force that pulls on the earth from the sun to go away. With the EM field shrinking and the gravity field gone I would guess the earth would then be moving away from the where it was orbiting the sun in a curved line that increased its curve as the EM field disapears.

IF you removed the EM field and Gravity fiend instantly then the earth would probably just go off in a straight line. Just a guess idk if any of this is correct.

Answer 4

in 8-min the earth would be set free of the sprialing around the sun and would fall into a spiral orbit around the next largest object - which would not be Pluto

Answer 5

If all the mass were to vanish, it would be instant, we'd keep our velocity at the time of the 'disappearance' and keep heading in a straight line.